Sento with Baachan: A short story about memory and steam
Premise: You are back home from college, spending time with your grandma, or baachan, who has Alzheimer’s. As you revisit the past together, some things might be forgotten, rewritten, or re-remembered.
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My game is heavily based on personal experiences with my own grandma, with some inspiration from my favorite author, Kazuo Ishiguro, and his exploration of memory as a tool for self-deception. Is forgetting a mercy, or does it take away something that we need, even when it causes pain?
Today, I had the privilege of playtesting with Alex, a fellow CS377G classmate. There were two “big moments” in my v1 prototype, where I got his initial reaction and feedback on my game.
1. The context building
My idea for this game is the main character (me, or the player in the game) taking a soak in a sento (a Japanese public bathhouse) with her grandma. It’s an intimate family bonding moment with a touch of Japanese heritage.
Through early dialogue, I want to imply that she rarely comes back home –
Baachan: “When did you come home?”
Player: “Last week, baachan.”
Baachan: “When are you leaving?”
Player: “I fly out Monday, baachan.”
To create the context that this is a special, one-on-one moment with family that we rarely get as busy college students going out into the world.
To this, Alex’s reaction seemed to be confusion about the bathhouse setting of the game. When I explained the Japanese practice of public bathhouses, his reaction was: “Oh, I see; I wouldn’t know because I’m not Japanese.” This is a dilemma I’ve had since the start of designing this game – not everyone would get the reference or meaning of Japanese bathhouses and the intimate bonding experience that comes with it, but is it worth keeping? I believe Alex’s confusion came from a mix of 1) the prototype drawing being unclear and 2) not knowing what a sento means culturally. Since the game is personal and I like the intention behind the setting, I think my choice would still be to keep the Japanese references like the sento and using the word baachan. To 1), maybe I can add more sound, visual, and dialogue (like “the water’s hot today), and to 2), maybe I can convey the intimacy through the dialogue, so that players would not need to know the custom to understand the context (somehow … not sure how yet). However, if visible confusion continues through more playtesting, I may reconsider keeping all of the Japanese elements.
2. The “Steam”
Midway, there is more “steam” in the picture – both literally (in the bathhouse) and figuratively (in baachan’s memory).
Baachan: “I wonder if your grandpa has already returned to the lounge. He only takes short soaks.”
Player (option 1): “Grandpa died last year, baachan…”
Player (option 2): “Yea, I think so, baachan.”
Player (option 3): “… I’m not sure.”
Where the player is introduced to the main dilemma/tension in this game – is forgetting bliss, or does it take something important away from us? Alex’s reaction was: “Oh sh*t – there’s no way I could tell her”, “But why would anyone choose to tell her the truth? She’s going to forget anyway,” and he chose option 2.
To him, the answer was obvious. She’s going to forget anyways, why would it matter if you’d told her the truth or not? My defense to him was the brevity of the visit and not wanting to destroy the peaceful moment with grief, even if she would forget about it again later on. However, this makes me reflect that the choice currently feels one-sided (most people would choose not to be honest with her for the same reason as Alex), and there really is not much weight in being honest with her. Perhaps I could give the honest option more weight by showing the cost of a comforting lie later in the game (perhaps the lie doesn’t fully protect her “… he’s been gone a long time, hasn’t he?” or she worries about him later on that would “cost” the player of telling her a lie).
Next Steps: Building up more dialogue
The grandpa example kind of came out of nowhere in the v1 prototype, so I’m brainstorming more build-up dialogue between the characters. One idea I have is having repeated conversations on the same topic, but with a twist:
Baachan: I brought your mom here all the time when she was little… she was running and slipped on the rocks; she fell right on her butt!
Player (option 1): Haha, she’s told me before!
… (later on in the game) …
Baachan: I brought you here all the time when you were little … do you remember when you slipped and fell right on your butt?
Player (option 1): Do you mean my mom?
Player (option 2): Hahaha …. yea.
Maybe this would give the player a lower-stakes version of the same dilemma first. As of now, I plan that the player won’t know about the Alzheimer’s yet (they will infer it from the game), so this might be the first hint. My intention for the game is not to be about the disease, but to give the player a chance to explore memory and why it matters to of us — and I hope to be able to make that happen through more iterated versions of Sento with Baachan.
